Born:- 12 January 1863
Died:- 4 July 1902 (aged 39)
Born as Narendranath Datta (Bengali: [nɔrendronatŨ dɔto]), Swami Vivekananda (/ˈswɑ˞mi ˌvɪveɪˈkɑ\nəndə/; Bengali: [ʃami bibekanɔndo]; IAST: Svāmī Vivekānanda; 12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, writer, religious teacher, and the principal disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. As the founder of contemporary Indian nationalism, he had a significant role in introducing Vedanta and Yoga to the West. He is also recognized for having elevated interfaith understanding and elevated Hinduism to a prominent global religion in the late 1800s.
Born into a wealthy Bengali Kayastha family in Calcutta, Vivekananda had a predisposition towards spirituality and religion from an early age. Later, he discovered Ramakrishna, his teacher, and became become a monk.
As a wandering monk, Vivekananda traveled the Indian subcontinent extensively following the passing of Ramakrishna, gaining firsthand experience of the living conditions of Indians in British India at the time. Inspired by their plight, he decided to assist them and managed to get to the United States. After giving his well-known speech, “Sisters and Brothers of America,” at the 1893 Parliament of Religions in Chicago, where he introduced Hinduism to the American people, he rose to fame.
There, he left such an impression that he was called “an orator by divine right and undoubtedly the greatest figure at the Parliament” by an American newspaper.
Following his tremendous success at the Parliament, Vivekananda went on to spread the fundamental ideas of Hindu philosophy by giving hundreds of lectures throughout the United States, England, and Europe.
He also founded two organizations that would later become the main hubs for Vedanta Societies in the West: the Vedanta Society of New York and the Vedanta Society of San Francisco (now known as the Vedanta Society of Northern California). He established the Ramakrishna Mission, which engages in charitable work, social service, and education, as well as the Ramakrishna Math, which offers spiritual instruction to both householders and monastics in India.
In his day, Vivekananda was one of the most prominent social reformers and intellectuals in India. He was also the most successful Vedanta missionary to the West. In addition, he had a significant influence on modern Hindu reform organizations and helped develop the idea of nationalism in colonial India. He is today considered a national saint and one of the most important figures in contemporary India. In India, National Youth Day is observed on his birthday.
Early Years (1863–1888)
Birth and Early Life
In the midst of the Makar Sankranti celebration on January 12, 1863, in the Bengali Kayastha family’s ancestral house at 3 Gourmohan Mukherjee Street in Calcutta, the capital of British India, Vivekananda was born as Narendranath Datta, sometimes known as Narendra or Naren. He was one of nine siblings and came from a conventional household.
Vishwanath Datta, his father, practiced law at the Calcutta High Court. Narendra’s grandpa, Durgacharan Datta, was a scholar of Sanskrit and Persian who, at the age of twenty-five, left his family to become a monk. Bhubaneswari Devi, his mother, was a devoted homemaker. Narendra’s thoughts and personality were influenced by his mother’s religious disposition and his father’s progressive, pragmatic outlook.
From an early age, Narendranath had a spiritual interest and would meditate in front of pictures of gods like Shiva, Rama, Sita, and Mahavir Hanuman. Monks and traveling ascetics captivated him. As a young boy, Narendra was naughty and agitated, and his parents frequently struggled to keep him under control. “I prayed to Shiva for a son, and he has sent me one of his demons,” his mother declared.
Learning
When Narendranath was eight years old, he joined in the Metropolitan Institution of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar in 1871. He attended this school till his family relocated to Raipur in 1877. He was the sole student to achieve first-division scores in the Presidency College admission test in 1879, following his family’s return to Calcutta. He read a great deal on a variety of topics, such as literature, philosophy, social science, history, and art. Hindu texts such as the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the Puranas piqued his curiosity as well. Narendra received training in Indian classical music and engaged in organized sports, physical activity, and physical education on a regular basis.
David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Baruch Spinoza, Georg W. F. Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill, and Charles Darwin were among the authors that Narendra studied. He translated Herbert Spencer’s book Education (1861) into Bengali and communicated with him after being enthralled with his evolutionism. He studied Bengali literature and Sanskrit texts with Western intellectuals.
“Narendra is really a genius,” stated William Hastie, the principal of Christian College, Calcutta, where Narendra received his degree. I have traveled far and wide, yet even among philosophy students at German colleges, I have never encountered a boy with his abilities and potential. He’s going to leave his impact on this world.”
Narendra was renowned for his extraordinary recall and quick reading skills. Numerous instances have been provided as examples. He once recited two or three pages from Pickwick Papers verbatim in a lecture. Another example described is his dispute with a Swedish national during which he brought up certain points about Swedish history that the Swede initially denied but then agreed to. In a different event, Vivekananda was reviewing some poetry work with Dr. Paul Deussen at Kiel, Germany, and he did not respond when the professor talked to him. He later expressed regret to Dr. Deussen, saying that he had not heard him because he was too preoccupied with his reading.
Not content with this justification, the professor was left flabbergasted by Vivekananda’s ability to recall and analyze verses from the book. He once checked out three books by Sir John Lubbock from the library and gave them back the next day, saying he had read them. Until a cross-examination on the contents persuaded him that Vivekananda was, in fact, telling the truth, the librarian hesitated to trust him.
Narendra has been referred to in some sources as a shrutidhara, or someone with an extraordinary memory.
First Attempts at Spirituality
Keshab Chandra Sen founded the Nava Vidhan in 1880, and Narendra became a member of it after meeting Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and becoming a Hindu instead of a Christian. In his twenties, Narendra joined the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, a breakaway branch of the Brahmo Samaj headed by Keshab Chandra Sen and Debendranath Tagore, as well as a Freemasonry lodge “at some point before 1884”. He participated actively in Sen’s Band of Hope, which worked to dissuade young people from drinking and smoking, from 1881 to 1884.
In this cultic environment, Narendra was introduced to Western esotericism. First impressions of Brahmo’s thought were characterized by a rejection of caste and polytheism, as well as a “streamlined, rationalized, monotheistic theology strongly colored by a selective and modernistic reading of the Upanisads and of the Vedanta.”
The Brahmo Samaj’s founder, Rammohan Roy, who was much influenced by unitarianism, tried to understand Hinduism in a universalistic way. Debendranath Tagore, who took a romantic approach to the creation of these new theories and questioned fundamental Hindu beliefs like rebirth and karma, as well as rejecting the authority of the Vedas, “altered […] considerably” his views. Sen advanced this “neo-Hinduism” by bringing it closer to Western esotericism, a move that Tagore also made.
Sen was impacted by transcendentalism, a unitarian-rooted American philosophical-religious movement that prioritized individual religious experiences over logic and theology. Sen introduced “lay systems of spiritual practice” in an effort to create “an accessible, non-renunciatory, everyman type of spirituality”; these may be seen as a precursor to the teachings that Vivekananda would later popularize in the West.
Narendra, dissatisfied with his philosophical understanding, arrived at “the question which marked the real beginning of his intellectual quest for God.” None of the well-known citizens of Calcutta that he questioned about whether they had experienced a “face to face with God” could satisfy him.
Narendra questioned Brahmo Samaj leader Debendranath Tagore if he had seen God at this point. With no response to his query, Tagore said, “My boy, you have the Yogi’s eyes.” The genuine response to Narendra’s query, according to Banhatti, came from Ramakrishna, who said, “Yes, I see Him as I see you, only in an infinitely intenser sense.” De Michelis claims that rather than Ramakrishna, Vivekananda was more impacted by the Brahmo Samaj and its novel ideas.
The Brahmo Samaj undoubtedly had a formative impact, according to Swami Medhananda, but “Narendra’s momentous encounter with Ramakrishna changed the course of his life by turning him away from Brahmoism.” De Michelis claims that Sen’s influence was the reason Vivekananda completely engaged with Western esotericism and that Sen introduced him to Ramakrishna.
Getting to know Ramakrishna
When his own father passed away in 1884, Narendra turned his attention to Ramakrishna, whom he had met in 1881.
When Professor William Hastie read aloud on William Wordsworth’s poem The Excursion in a literary lesson at General Assembly’s Institution, Narendra was first introduced to Ramakrishna. In his explanation of the poem’s use of the word “trance,” Hastie advised his pupils to see Ramakrishna of Dakshineswar in order to comprehend the meaning of trance in its purest form. This led to the visitation of Ramakrishna by a few of his disciples, including Narendra.
Though Narendra did not see this as their first encounter and neither man later remembered this occasion, it is likely that they first met in person in November 1881. Ram Chandra Datta took Narendra to the home of Surendra Nath Mitra, where Ramakrishna was asked to give a lecture, while he was getting ready for his impending F. A. test. Makarand Paranjape claims that Ramakrishna invited young Narendra to sing during this gathering. His singing ability impressed him so much that he invited Narendra to Dakshineshwar.
Narendra traveled to Dakshineswar with two pals in late 1881 or early 1882, when they met Ramakrishna. His life really took a turn after this encounter. He originally opposed Ramakrishna’s teachings and did not recognize him as his teacher, but he was drawn to his charisma and started going to Dakshineswar on a regular basis. At first, he considered Ramakrishna’s visions and ecstasies to be “hallucinations” and “mere figments of imagination”.
As a follower of Brahmo Samaj, he was against polytheism, idolatry, and the worship of Kali by Ramakrishna. Even the Advaita Vedanta’s doctrine of “identity with the absolute” was condemned by him as heresy and insanity, and he frequently made fun of it. Ramakrishna gently responded to Narendra’s exam by saying, “Try to see the truth from all angles.”
Following the unexpected death of Narendra’s father in 1884, the family was plunged into bankruptcy; creditors demanded debt repayments and family members threatened to force the family from their ancestral house. Narendra, who grew up in a prosperous home, ended up being among the poorest college students. He doubted God’s existence and made fruitless attempts to obtain employment, but he found comfort in Ramakrishna, and his trips to Dakshineswar grew.
Narendra once asked Ramakrishna to offer prayers to goddess Kali in order to ensure their family’s financial well-being. Rather, Ramakrishna advised him to visit the temple and offer prayers for himself. He visited the temple three times as suggested by Ramakrishna, but he did not ask the goddess for anything materialistic; instead, he begged for genuine knowledge and devotion. With time, Narendra became prepared to give up everything in order to realize God, and he acknowledged Ramakrishna as his Guru.
After being diagnosed with throat cancer in 1885, Ramakrishna was sent to Calcutta and then, eventually, to a garden home in Cossipore. In his final days, Ramakrishna was cared for by Narendra and the other disciples, and Narendra’s spiritual training persisted. He encountered Nirvikalpa samadhi at Cossipore.
Ramakrishna gave ochre robes to Narendra and a few other pupils, establishing his first monastic order. He was taught that the best way to worship God was through service to others. He was urged to look after the other monastic followers by Ramakrishna, who also requested them to see Narendra as their leader. Early on August 16, 1886, in the morning, Ramakrishna passed away at Cossipore.
The Ramakrishna Math Foundation
Following Ramakrishna’s passing, his followers and devotees ceased to provide assistance for his disciples. After arrears on their rent mounted, Narendra and the other followers had to move. Many of them went back home and started living Grihastha (family-oriented) lifestyles. Narendra made the decision to turn a run-down home in Baranagar into a brand-new math (monastery) for the followers that remained. Low rent was generated for the Baranagar Math by “holy begging” (mādhukarī).
The math eventually formed the initial structure of the Ramakrishna Math, which was the monastic order of Ramakrishna’s monastery. Every day, Narendra and his followers would devote many hours to practicing religious austerities and meditation. Later, Narendra reflected back on the monastery’s early years:
At the Baranagar Math, we engaged in extensive religious practice. We used to get up at three in the morning and lose ourselves in meditation and japa. How much of a detached spirit we had back then! We didn't even consider the possibility that the world existed.
Along with Vaishnav Charan Basak, Narendra compiled the Bengali song anthology Sangeet Kalpataru in 1887. The majority of the songs in this compilation were gathered and organized by Narendra, but due to unfavorable circumstances, he was unable to complete the book’s work.
Vows of Monks
Baburam’s mother[note 2] invited Narendra and his other brother monks to Antpur village in December 1886. After accepting the invitation, Narendra and the other would-be monks traveled to Antpur for a few days. On Christmas Eve, 1886, in the Radha Gobinda Jiu temple in Antpur, twenty-three-year-old Narendra and eight other students took solemn monastic vows. They made the decision to follow in their master’s footsteps. “Swami Vivekananda” became Narendranath’s given name.
Journeys to India (1888–1893)
On May 31, 1893, Vivekananda set out on his journey to the West. En route to the United States, he stopped in several cities in China, Japan (including Nagasaki, Kobe, Yokohama, Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo), and Canada.
On July 30, 1893, he arrived in Chicago, where the “Parliament of Religions” was held in September of the same year. Charles C. Bonney, a Swedenborgian layman and Illinois Supreme Court judge proposed the Congress in an effort to bring together all global religions and demonstrate “the substantial unity of many religions in the good deeds of the religious life.”
As “an avant-garde intellectual manifestation of […] cultic milieus, East and West,” it was one of the more than 200 adjunct conferences and congresses of the Chicago World’s Fair, to which the Brahmo Samaj and the Theosophical Society were invited as representatives of Hinduism.
When Vivekananda found out that no one without credentials from a legitimate organization would be allowed to serve as a delegate, he was saddened and decided not to participate. Vivekananda got in touch with Harvard University Professor John Henry Wright, who extended an invitation for him to give a speech there.
“He urged upon me the necessity of going to the Parliament of Religions, which he thought would give an introduction to the nation,” Vivekananda wrote of the professor. Protapchandra Mozoombar, a representative of the Brahmo Samaj and a member of the Parliament’s selection committee, endorsed Vivekananda’s application, which he described as a monk “of the oldest order of sannyāsis… founded by Sankara” and “classified the Swami as a representative of the Hindu monastic order.”
William James, a psychology professor at Harvard, said after listening to Vivekananda speak, “that man is simply a wonder for oratorical power.” He is a credit to mankind.”
The Parliament of International Religious
As a component of the World’s Columbian Exposition, the Parliament of the World’s Religions debuted on September 11, 1893, at the Art Institute of Chicago. Vivekananda spoke briefly on behalf of India and Hinduism on this day. At first, he was apprehensive, bowing before the Hindu goddess of learning, Saraswati, before launching into his address, “Sisters and brothers of America!” The 7,000-strong audience gave Vivekananda a two-minute standing ovation at these remarks.
When quiet was restored, he reportedly began speaking on behalf of “the most ancient order of monks in the world, the Vedic order of sannyasins, a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance” and greeted the newest of the countries. Sailendra Nath Dhar reported this.
Vivekananda cited two illustrations from the “Shiva Mahima stotram”: “As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take, through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee!” along with “Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths that in the end lead to Me.” It was only a brief speech, but Sailendra Nath Dhar claims that it “voiced the spirit of the Parliament.”
“India, the Mother of religions, was represented by Swami Vivekananda, the Orange-monk who exercised the most wonderful influence over his auditors,” stated John Henry Barrows, President of Parliament. The press dubbed Vivekananda the “cyclonic monk from India” and gave him a lot of attention. The New York Critique stated, “He is an orator by divine right, and his strong, intelligent face in its picturesque setting of yellow and orange was hardly less interesting than those earnest words, and the rich, rhythmical utterance he gave them”.
“Vivekananda is without a doubt the greatest figure in the Parliament of Religions,” the New York Herald said. We realize after listening to him how ridiculous it is to send missionaries to this highly educated country.”
Lecture travel to the US and the UK
Following the Parliament of Religions, he was a visitor across most of the United States. Because of his fame, fresh perspectives on “life and religion to thousands” have emerged. He made the following comment at a Q&A session at Brooklyn Ethical Society: “I have a message to the West as Buddha had a message to the East.”
For over two years, Vivekananda traveled across the eastern and central regions of the United States, giving lectures mostly in Chicago, Detroit, Boston, and New York. In 1894, he established the Vedanta Society of New York. His health had suffered by the spring of 1895 due to his demanding and exhausting routine. He stopped doing lecture tours and started offering free one-on-one yoga and Vedanta courses. For two months, starting in June 1895, Vivekananda personally lectured to twelve of his followers at Thousand Island Park, New York.
He made two trips to the UK on his first trip to the West, in 1895 and 1896, where he gave well-received lectures. He first encountered Margaret Elizabeth Noble, an Irishwoman who would later become Sister Nivedita, in November 1895. In May 1896, Vivekananda made his second trip to the UK and met Max Müller, an Oxford University Indologist who penned the first biography of Ramakrishna in the West.
Vivekananda traveled across Europe after leaving the UK. He met another Indologist, Paul Deussen, in Germany. Two American colleges extended academic posts to Vivekananda, including the chair in Eastern Philosophy at Harvard University and a comparable post at Columbia University. He turned them down since his obligations as a monk would clash with these offers.
Due to Vivekananda’s success, his aim was reoriented to focus on establishing Vedanta centers throughout the West. In order to meet the demands and comprehension of his Western audiences—who were particularly drawn to and knowledgeable about Western esoteric traditions and movements like Transcendentalism and New thought—Vivekananda modified conventional Hindu concepts and religion.
The introduction of his “four yogas” model—which includes Raja yoga, and his interpretation of Patanjali’s Yoga sutras—was a significant part of his adaptation of the Hindu religion. It provided a useful way to realize the divine energy that lies at the heart of contemporary Western esotericism.
His book Raja Yoga was released in 1896 and was an immediate hit. Elizabeth de Michelis believed it to be the first work of modern yoga and it had a significant impact on how yoga was understood in the West.
Josephine MacLeod, Betty Leggett, Lady Sandwich, William James, Josiah Royce, Robert G. Ingersoll, Lord Kelvin, Harriet Monroe, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Sarah Bernhardt, Nikola Tesla, Emma Calvé, and Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz were among the many admirers and followers of Vivekananda in the US and Europe.
He initiated a number of disciples so they might carry on the Vedanta Society’s mission: Marie Louise, a Frenchwoman, became Swami Abhayananda, and Leon Landsberg became Swami Kripananda. This Los Angeles-based society is still predominantly made up of foreign immigrants. Vivekananda received property in the mountains southeast of San Jose, California, during his time there to build a retreat for Vedanta practitioners.
He referred to it as Shanti Asrama, or “Peace retreat”. Out of the twelve primary centers, the Vedanta Society of Southern California in Hollywood is the largest in the United States. Additionally, a Vedanta Press exists in Hollywood that produces works on Vedanta as well as English translations of Hindu literature and traditions. Vivekananda also used a mantra to initiate Christina Greenstidel of Detroit, who later became Sister Christine. The two had a deep father-daughter bond.
Vivekananda, a Westerner, brought his work back to India. He offered guidance and financial assistance in his frequent correspondence with his adherents and fellow monks [note 5]. His sharply written letters from this era demonstrate his social service agenda. “Go from door to door among the poor and lower classes of the town of Khetri and teach them religion,” he wrote to Akhandananda.
Allow children to learn geography and other topics orally as well. If you can’t help the impoverished, there’s no use in shouting “Ramakrishna, O Lord!” while sipping royal foods and doing nothing. To spread the Vedanta, Vivekananda established the journal Brahmavadin in 1895.
The first six chapters of The Imitation of Christ were later translated by Vivekananda and published in Brahmavadin in 1899. On December 16, 1896, Vivekananda, accompanied by his followers Captain and Mrs. Sevier and J.J. Goodwin, departed for India from England.
They traveled through France and Italy before setting ship for India on December 30, 1896, from Naples. Sister Nivedita eventually joined him to India, where she spent the remainder of her life advocating for women’s education and Indian independence.
Returning to India, 1897–1899)
On January 15, 1897, a ship from Europe landed in Colombo, British Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where Vivekananda was greeted with great warmth. He delivered his first address in public in the East in Colombo.
His voyage to Calcutta was successful after that. Vivekananda gave lectures while traveling from Colombo to Pamban, Rameswaram, Ramnad, Madurai, Kumbakonam, and Madras. Both the common people and the rajas welcomed him with great enthusiasm. People would frequently sit on the train’s tracks to make it stop so they could hear him when he traveled. His voyage took him from Madras (now Chennai) via Calcutta and Almora.
Vivekananda discussed India’s rich spiritual legacy when he was in the West, but he also constantly addressed societal concerns there, such as raising the populace, dismantling the caste system, advancing industrialization and science, combating extreme poverty, and putting an end to colonial tyranny. These talks, which were published as Lectures from Colombo to Almora, reveal his spiritual doctrine and fervor for nationalism.
Vivekananda established the Ramakrishna Mission for Social Service in Calcutta on May 1, 1897. Its principles are grounded on Karma Yoga, and the trustees of the Ramakrishna Math (a religious organization) make up its governing board.
The headquarters of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission are located in Belur Math. Two further monasteries were created by Vivekananda: the Advaita Ashrama in Mayavati, near Almora, in the Himalayas, and the Madras (now Chennai) monastery. Prabuddha Bharata (in English) and Udbhodan (in Bengali) were the two periodicals that were created. Swami Akhandananda started providing hunger aid in the Murshidabad area that year.
During Vivekananda’s first trip to the West in 1893, he traveled with Jamsetji Tata from Yokohama to Chicago, where they established a research and educational institute. Vivekananda turned down Tata’s invitation to lead his Research Institute of Science, claiming a clash with his “spiritual interests”.
He traveled to Punjab in an effort to settle a dispute between orthodox Hindus and the reformist Hindu movement Arya Samaj. In January 1898, after quick trips to Delhi, Khetri, and Lahore, Vivekananda returned to Calcutta. He spent several months training followers and consolidating the math work. “Khandana Bhava–Bandhana” is a prayer song devoted to Ramakrishna that Vivekananda wrote in 1898.
The latter years and the second trip to the West (1899–1902)
In June 1899, Vivekananda set off for the West once more, this time with Sister Nivedita and Swami Turiyananda, despite his deteriorating health. After a short stay in England, he traveled to the US. Vivekananda created a shanti ashrama (peace retreat) in California and Vedanta Societies in San Francisco and New York during this tour. In 1900, he traveled to Paris for the Congress of Religions.
He discussed the worship of the lingam and the veracity of the Bhagavad Gita in his lectures in Paris. After that, Vivekananda traveled to Egypt, Vienna, Athens, Istanbul, and Brittany. During this time, he was hosted by the French philosopher Jules Bois till his return to Calcutta on December 9, 1900.
Following a brief stay in the Advaita Ashrama in Mayavati, Vivekananda made his home at Belur Math, where he carried on overseeing the math, the Ramakrishna Mission, and the work in the US and England. Among his many guests were politicians and members of the nobility. Due to declining health, Vivekananda was unable to attend the Congress of Religions in 1901 in Japan; nonetheless, he still traveled to Bodhgaya and Varanasi on pilgrimage. His declining health limited his activities. This included diabetes, asthma, and severe sleeplessness.
Death
On his deathbed, July 4, 1902, Vivekananda rose early, went to the Belur Math monastery, and spent three hours in meditation. After instructing students in Shukla-Yajur-Veda, Sanskrit grammar, and yoga philosophy, he talked with colleagues about the idea of establishing a Vedic college in the Ramakrishna Math. Vivekananda went to his room at 7:00 p.m. and asked not to be disturbed. He passed away while meditating at 9:20 p.m. Vivekananda experienced mahasamādhi, according to his students; a likely reason of his death was a ruptured blood vessel in his brain.
According to his pupils, the reason behind the breach was that he had acquired mahasamādhi, which caused his brahmarandhra (an orifice in the crown of his skull) to be punctured. In accordance with his forecast, Vivekananda will not survive for forty years. In Belur, on the banks of the Ganga, he was burned on a funeral pyre made of sandalwood, directly across from where Ramakrishna had been sixteen years previously.
Philosophies and Teachings
Vivekananda was inspired by Western concepts like universalism while synthesizing and popularizing several Hindu philosophical traditions, most notably classical yoga and (Advaita) Vedanta. This was made possible by Unitarian missionaries working with the Brahmo Samaj. A “streamlined, rationalized, monotheistic theology strongly colored by a selective and modernistic reading of the Upanisads and of the Vedanta” and a belief in a formless God and the rejection of idolatry were among the Brahmo notions that influenced his early views. He promoted the notion that “the divine, the absolute, exists within all human beings regardless of social status”, as well as “seeing the divine as the essence of others will promote love and social harmony” .
Vivekananda was introduced to Western esotericism through his associations with Sen’s Band of Hope, the Freemasonry lodge, the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, and Keshub Chandra Sen’s Nava Vidhan.
Ramakrishna had an even greater impact on Narendra, eventually introducing him to a Vedanta-based worldview that “provides the ontological basis for ‘śivajñāne jīver sevā’, the spiritual practice of serving human beings as actual manifestations of God.”
Vivekananda popularized the idea that Adi Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta doctrine best encapsulated Hinduism. However, in contrast to Advaita Vedanta and following Ramakrishna, Vivekananda held that the Absolute is both immanent and transcendent.[Note 6] “Reconciles Dvaita or dualism and Advaita or non-dualism,” according to Anil Sooklal, Vivekananda’s neo-Vedanta sees Brahman as “one without a second,” but also as “qualified, saguna, and qualityless, nirguna.”[Note 7] Following a contemporary, universalistic understanding of the Vedanta, Vivekananda demonstrated the impact of classical yoga.
Every soul has the capacity to be heavenly. The aim is to dominate nature, both internal and external, in order to manifest this Divinity inside. Achieve this by labor, devotion, meditation, philosophy, or any combination of these, and you will be set free. That is religion in its entirety. Dogmas, texts, temples, rituals, forms, and doctrines are only incidental features.
Medieval yogic effects on Advaita Vedanta predate Vivekananda’s emphasis on nirvikalpa samadhi. According to Advaita Vedanta writings such as Dŗg-Dŗśya-Viveka (written in the 14th century) and Vedantasara (written by Sadananda in the 15th century), Vivekananda believed that samadhi may lead to freedom.
In addition to Darwin’s theory of evolution, Vivekananda popularized the idea of involution, a phrase that she likely borrowed from western Theosophists like Helena Blavatsky and may have also referenced the Samkhya term sātkarya. There is “much in common” between “theosophic ideas on involution and theories of God’s descent found in Kabbalah, Gnosticism, and other esoteric schools.”
As Meera Nanda puts it, “Vivekananda uses the word involution exactly how it appears in Theosophy: the descent, or the involvement, of divine cosnciousness into matter.” Vivekananda associates prana, or purusha, with spirit. Prana or purusha is derived (“with some original twists”) from Samkhya and traditional yoga as taught by Patanjali in Sutras.
According to Vivekananda, morality is a function of mental control, and the qualities of truth, purity, and selflessness are what bolster the mind. He counseled his disciples to have shraddhā (faith), to be pious, and to be selfless. Supporting Brahmacharya, Vivekananda attributed his mental and physical eloquence to it.
Since his 1893 address at the Parliament of Religions, Vivekananda has been very influential in Western esoteric circles due to his familiarity with Western esotericism. In order to meet the demands and comprehension of his Western audiences—who were particularly drawn to and knowledgeable about Western esoteric traditions and movements like Transcendentalism and New thought—Vivekananda modified conventional Hindu concepts and religion.
The introduction of his four yoga models, which include Raja yoga, his interpretation of Patanjali’s Yoga sutras, which provided a useful way to realize the divine energy within that is essential to contemporary Western esotericism, was a significant part of his adaption of Hindu religion.
His book Raja Yoga, which was released in 1896, was an immediate hit and had a significant impact on how yoga was seen in the West.
One of Vivekananda’s main themes in his thinking was nationalism. His lectures were centered on human development since he thought that a nation’s destiny rested on its citizens. His goal was “to set in motion a machinery which will bring noblest ideas to the doorstep of even the poorest and the meanest”.
